g heat. There are times when minor difficulties grow gigantic
--times, when as the Hebrew poet expressively terms it, "the grasshopper
is a burthen;" so was it with our ill fated party this evening. Adrian,
usually the first to rally his spirits, and dash foremost into fatigue and
hardship, with relaxed limbs and declined head, the reins hanging loosely
in his grasp, left the choice of the path to the instinct of his horse, now
and then painfully rousing himself, when the steepness of the ascent
required that he should keep his seat with better care. Fear and horror
encompassed me. Did his languid air attest that he also was struck with
contagion? How long, when I look on this matchless specimen of mortality,
may I perceive that his thought answers mine? how long will those limbs
obey the kindly spirit within? how long will light and life dwell in the
eyes of this my sole remaining friend? Thus pacing slowly, each hill
surmounted, only presented another to be ascended; each jutting corner only
discovered another, sister to the last, endlessly. Sometimes the pressure
of sickness in one among us, caused the whole cavalcade to halt; the call
for water, the eagerly expressed wish to repose; the cry of pain, and
suppressed sob of the mourner--such were the sorrowful attendants of our
passage of the Jura.

Adrian had gone first. I saw him, while I was detained by the loosening of
a girth, struggling with the upward path, seemingly more difficult than any
we had yet passed. He reached the top, and the dark outline of his figure
stood in relief against the sky. He seemed to behold something unexpected
and wonderful; for, pausing, his head stretched out, his arms for a moment
extended, he seemed to give an All Hail! to some new vision. Urged by
curiosity, I hurried to join him. After battling for many tedious minutes
with the precipice, the same scene presented itself to me, which had wrapt
him in extatic wonder.

Nature, or nature's favourite, this lovely earth, presented her most
unrivalled beauties in resplendent and sudden exhibition. Below, far, far
below, even as it were in the yawning abyss of the ponderous globe, lay the
placid and azure expanse of lake Leman; vine-covered hills hedged it in,
and behind dark mountains in cone-like shape, or irregular cyclopean wall,
served for further defence. But beyond, and high above all, as if the
spirits of the air had suddenly unveiled their bright abodes, placed in
scaleless altit